PopWars

I usually say “no said “ok” today went for the surround X-ray today because the equipment was brand new and the hygienist told me it was about as much radiation as I would get outdoors if it was sunny. In fact the whole office is brand new. My dentist had to move because a company bought the building he was in so they could put up a Walgreens. The town voted down the Walgreens but my dentist had already moved. His new place has TVs everywhere and a coffee machine that makes one cup at at time of the brew of your choice. I chose “Black Magic”. It was so good I had another one on the way out. Did I tell you my dentist’s name is Rocco and his son named his Italian restaurant after him? We ate there and I had Chicken Cacciatore as good as Charlie Coco’s mother used to make.

I think this is a horse Chestnut. I found it in the woods a few days ago and photographed it before putting it on put it on our window sill. Why do artists even bother to compete with nature? This morning while I was making coffee the chestnut rolled out of its shell, off the sill, on to the floor and down the basement steps. Our cat ran after it.

Speaking of explosions, Margaret Explosion plays our last October gig tonight. I’m hoping to be home in time to see the Yankees beat the Phillies.

I headed downtown for jury duty this morning with my bike in the car. I wanted to save the parking fees so I left the car at the Village Gate and rode to the Hall of Justice. I couldn’t find a bike rack in vast Public Safety courtyard so I locked it to a picnic table. I joined about two hundred people in a big room and we watched a twenty minute video, narrated by Sixty Minute man, Ed Bradley, on the New York State jury system. He covered a lot of ground from Medieval “Trial by Ordeal” to Perry Mason. About seventy of us were assigned to a judge’s courtroom on another floor so we marched up there and they began the jury selection process.

They called fourteen people at a time and sat them in the jury booth. The public defender described this phase as being like “speed dating”. The people’s attorney asked potential jurors questions like, “Do you think CSI and Law & Order are real or scripted?” “Do you realize that I am not an actor and that there are no extras in this courtroom?” “Do you realize that this is real and not scripted?” One guy said his father was a cop and he would be biased. He was excused. A woman said her hobby was gambling and she was not chosen. My hobby is painting crime faces from the newspaper but I haven’t been interviewed yet. Four jurors were selected by the time we broke for lunch. I rode my bike over to Rochester Art Supply to buy some white paint.

It is becoming clear that I am not jury material. I don’t know why exactly. It is just a hunch. I am a victim of a crime (several), have been accused of a crime, have a few lawyers in my family and I worked for the police department. I don’t know what way any of these factors slant but they seem to be looking for blank slates. By the end of the day they were still one short for a jury so they recessed until tomorrow.